1. FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention pertains to wheelchair restraint devices, and more particularly, it pertains to wheelchair restraint devices which can be quickly and easily installed in a vehicle to restrain a wheelchair from moving in any direction.
2. DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART
A typical wheelchair has two large wheels rotatably mounted with one on either side of the chair at positions where the patient can grasp the wheels to propel the chair. A pair of smaller support wheels are usually mounted between the large wheels and a footrest that extends outwardly at the front of the chair. Many of the prior art wheelchairs use a brake on each of the large wheels to prevent the chair from moving while it is in a vehicle being used to transport the patient. However, this often does not work satisfactorily because the wheels may slide across the floor while the vehicle is changing speeds or changing direction. If the vehicle slows down, at even a normal rate, for stop lights or for traffic and the wheelchair is facing the front of the vehicle, the chair may move rapidly along the floor of the vehicle. This is due to the fact that the slowing of the vehicle causes the chair to tilt in a forward direction so that the weight of the patient and chair is transferred almost entirely to the front wheels of the chair. As a result, any braking action between the floor of the vehicle and the rear wheels of the chair is not enough to overcome the inertia of the patient and chair. The chair may move wildly forward and bump into other chairs in the vehicle or into obstacles near the front of the vehicle.
Chairs with brakes on the rear wheels may also move, or even turn over, when the transporting vehicle turns a corner. As the vehicle turns, most of the weight of the patient and wheelchair is shifted to the wheels on one side of the chair. This allows the wheels without the weight to slide along the floor so that the chair may move and turn on the floor of the vehicle. If the vehicle turns a sharp corner the wheelchair may tilt far enough so that it turns over on its side. Thus, the prior art wheelchairs which rely solely upon the use of brakes on the large wheels are unsatisfactory because the wheelchair is not locked securely in position in the moving vehicle.
Other prior art restraint devices for wheelchairs make use of latches or belts which are fastened between the wheelchair and a portion of the vehicle being used to transport the wheelchair. This type of restraint device is generally unsatisfactory because the patient is often not able to hook and unhook the restraining devices himself but must be assisted by an attendant who connects and disconnects the restraint devices. This causes the loading and unloading of wheelchair patients to be slow and may also cause the patients to be trapped in the vehicle should the attendant not be readily available for releasing the patients at a discharge point.
A wheelchair locking arrangement which is designed to allow the patient himself to lock and unlock his wheelchair to the floor of a vehicle disclosed in a recently issued U.S. Pat. No. 3,752,265 to Lyder. However, the Lyder apparatus requires that specially designed hardware be attached to the sides of the wheelchairs before the chairs can be secured to the floor of the moving vehicle. Also the wheelchairs must be positioned in exactly the right location in the vehicle before the locking attachment can be connected between the wheelchair and the floor of the vehicle. The locking attachment shown in the Lyder patent also requires some physical dexterity in positioning the wheelchair and in connecting a pair of vertical shafts to threaded socket members mounted in the floor of the vehicle. For these reasons the Lyder device is not readily adapted for use in vehicles where a wide variety of patients may be transported or where the patients do not have the required dexterity to make the connection between the locking attachment and the mating socket member in the floor of the vehicle.